The above-ground parts of seed plants are made up of only leaves and stems. Flowers are also a set of organs that are transformed from leaves. Therefore, understanding the regulatory mechanism of leaf development is essential for elucidating the mechanism of plant morphogenesis and for understanding the morphological diversity in plants.

We have been the first in the world to identify the key genes that regulate leaf shape and size, using Arabidopsis thaliana. We have also discovered “compensation”, in which cell size increases to compensate for a decrease in cell number, and have been working to elucidate the mechanism of this phenomenon. The alteration of leaf morphology in response to the amount and direction of light is also an important theme of interest. We are also conducting evo-devo studies on the evolution of leaf morphology based on our accumulated research using model plants. For example, we are investigating the plasticity of leaf development in amphibious plants, and the developmental mechanism of unique leaf morphology in ant plants, monocotyledons, and one-leaf plants. More recently, we have been focusing on understanding the evolution of leaf gene networks during the evolution of land plants using RNA-seq and informatics. To achieve these goals, we use a wide range of research methods, including classical morphology and physiology, as well as molecular developmental genetics, and a variety of plant species, such as non-model plants from Borneo and Thailand, and Marchantia.

The theme of the Tsukaya lab. is to understand “plants” using “leaves” as a keyword.